This thread is meant for a serious discussion of religion, its limitations, its advantages, its history.
What is the use of religion? Does utility imply goodness? An important function of religion is to relink our personal and social relation to things-in-themselves and that symbolic imagery from most religion points from reality towards the real (in the Lacanian sense). Religious rituals are liminal in taking up the challenge of naturalizing social categories by way of artistic expression.
Three supposed disadvantageous aspects of modern religion include superstition, idolatry, and blasphemy. Superstition assumes that all sacred spheres, including ritual and community, must produce favorable results. This type of favourability is tranquilizing and ascetic. Superstition emphasizes the manipulation of the relation of perception and things-inthemselves, and in other words, have total control of that which reminds one of the the other. This is problematic because a thing-in-itself is only known as an appearance rather than a unified whole with other things-in-themselves. Superstition assumes that religion grants us access to control over predictive powers and all-encompassing explanations of being.
Catholic Idolatry may have been the main determinant in revising the 2nd commandment. This is problematic because an icon is worshipped as if it is God or Gods itself.
Blasphemy forces the limits of language and practice of relating the real and reality as contextual. Whether or not this aspect of religion is exclusively Abrahamic is doubtful.
I am more interested in the purely artistic forms of mythical religion that seem to supersede culture and normative limitations. Shamanism and Lulu spirits are more symbolic than those represented in the Balinese theatre.
But what are the main functions of religion? Is religion a necessity for healthy living?
Some of the mental fuckery I read in the Tao Te Ching just seems like linguistic acrobatics.
Is Joseph Campbell a credible author?
Does Mircea Eliade have anything important to say?
Why is my generation so disgustingly agnostic and scared of religion?